


don'tcha wanna dance

by kiaronna



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/F, Fluff, Good Babysitter Steve Harrington, LGBTQ Themes, Lesbian Robin Buckley, Period-Typical Homophobia, Robin Buckley gets to mentor and bond, Team Bonding, homophobia is only in references not actively shown bc I hate it as much as anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 23:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiaronna/pseuds/kiaronna
Summary: Eleven wrinkles her nose. “Sometimes it’s better being with my own species.”Robin, who had been writing down details for accounting, freezes. “Your own species… being…”“Not other mages.”“Oh, thank goodness.”“Only have met one other of those,” Eleven continues, dismissive, even as Robin stuffs down her own mounting horror at the thought of other mages, “no. I mean girls.” She smiles, small and thoughtful. “Nancy. Max most of all. I like girls.”(Robin, Eleven, and a series of conversations.)





	don'tcha wanna dance

It’s a slow summer day at the video store—the AC is being unreliable, and the fans they’ve hooked up all over the floor are doing little to help. Everything is lending itself to one infinite, miserable afternoon when Eleven steps in.

Robin doesn’t know what she does to the air, but it’s suddenly wonderfully cool. No longer oppressive.

“Back for the summer?”

“Yes,” Eleven says, and disappears into the racks. She returns a few minutes later, cradling a movie.

“This doesn’t seem like something Mike would enjoy,” Robin muses, flipping the video over in her hands. “A bit too… historical literature for him.”

Eleven peers at the video. “Not with Mike. Max says it’s a…” she thinks. “Classic.”

“Judging by the way she tortures Steve, I knew I liked Max.” Robin grins. “Now I _know_ she has good taste. But what’s going on? I thought while you were back in town you’d be with your boyfriend constantly.”

Eleven wrinkles her nose. “Sometimes it’s better being with my own species.”

Robin, who had been writing down details for accounting, freezes. “Your own species… being…”

“Not other mages.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

“Only have met one other of those,” Eleven continues, dismissive, even as Robin stuffs down her own mounting horror at the thought of other mages, “no. I mean girls.” She smiles, small and thoughtful. “Nancy. Max most of all. I like girls.”

The horror vanishes. It’s quickly replaced by a small, sparking _is it…_

But no. Of course Eleven would want to be around other women sometimes. She was trapped in a lab and tortured by multiple men and her bastard father, as far as Robin has heard, far from female role models or even friends. Robin has tried for years to find others—she’s projecting her own self onto a teenage kid. Now’s not the time.

(It’s never the time. Robin is tired.)

“If you both like that movie,” Robin says, “I have a recommendation for you. Come by during my shift when you return it, and I’ll show you the good stuff. Maybe even Mad Max’s namesake. Ok?”

“Okay,” Eleven agrees easily, that flickering smile. “Yes.”

Robin doesn’t know Eleven very well, but she wishes her the very best.

* * *

“Hey,” Steve greets her, holding the door open with one foot and balancing a pizza in his hand.

“This is Mike’s house,” she accuses, because he seems far too comfortable.

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m babysitting.”

“They’re _high schoolers_.”

“And their parents are rightfully paranoid about how danger-seeking their kids are. Who’s going to open the gate in Hawkins next? China? Who knows, Robin. Who. Knows. All that stands between the world and my kids is me and a spiked bat.”

“Inspiring,” she replies dryly, sweeping past him, and kindly doesn’t mock him for saying _my kids_. “They in the basement?”

“They’re on a D&D run. I don’t really get it. They keep calling me a ‘seducer’ though, so I’m down,” Steve says, moving to the basement doorway, and jogs down the stairs. Distantly, she hears: “Robin’s here, so we can eat!”

She’s not the only one still upstairs, though. On the couch, Eleven and Max are a tangle of rainbow stripes and jean shorts.

“Pepperoni?” Eleven asks, eyes lighting up.

“Yeah, I told Steve what you wanted,” Max replies, gently extricating her legs and hopping up. “Told him he better get it right this time.”

Eleven can find people from hundreds of miles away with psychic powers—she certainly doesn’t need help finding Mike’s basement. But Max waits for her to get to her feet, straighten out her bright green jumper. They go down the stairs holding hands.

Robin follows them, and eats her pizza, and doesn’t say anything that she wants to.

* * *

After a few of her (choice) recommendations pass Max and Eleven’s standards, they both come to her anytime they so much as pass the video store. Sometimes they just chat. Robin is used to Eleven and Mike coming in, but this seems to slow, and suddenly it’s MaxandEleven, ElevenandMax, all bright red hair and Eleven’s brunette curls that are growing longer by the day.

“Pretty,” she hears Max assuring El one day, twisting a strand between her fingers, when she stops to pause and look at a famous actress on a movie poster.

“So where’s Mike these days,” Robin says, in a way that she tries to make as offhand as possible. She is not a polite person. He’d actually come in the night before, with Will and Lucas and Dustin, and they’d rented a nerd movie that made her proud.

Eleven blinks, and what comes out of her mouth is:

“I dumped his ass.”

Robin’s jaw drops. “You—“

Looking supremely awkward, Eleven cuts her off. “Mike says I shouldn’t say it that way. It’s… break-up. We break-up. A while ago. We both wanted.”

“I—okay.” Robin’s used to kids this age. She’s not that far off from that age herself—she remembers how quickly break-ups and make-ups and new loves can happen. “If you both wanted it, that’s good.”

“Mike is my best friend,” Eleven says firmly, and then continues, “I need a recommendation.”

“Sure. What genre is on your mind?”

“Romance,” Eleven confirms, brightly. “One with girls.”

“Girly movie, got it. One with a hero as dreamy as Steve Harrington, I’m guessing.”

“No.” Eleven frowns. Clarifies: “ _Only_ girls.”

Robin’s heartrate skyrockets. Oh, she knows _exactly_ what kind of movie Eleven wants. Around that age, she’d started looking for them too.

But she certainly hadn’t stood at the counter of the town’s busiest video rental store, voice loud and eager, and requested a romance with _only girls._

Unconsciously, she realizes she’s started making _quiet down_ motions with her hands. Quirking her head, Eleven obeys, and Robin flips open the counter to usher her into the backroom.   
“Steve!” She hollers. “Man the counter!”

“Why are we here,” Eleven says seriously, once Robin has carefully shut the backroom door. “Danger?”

Robin shivers. She can’t bear to say _yes, danger._ “El. You know you can’t—you can’t ask for things like that in front of other people. People that aren’t like… me.” She’d come out to Steve Harrington, Homecoming King, after he professed his feelings for her. She can come out to a teen, superpowers or no.

“Like you how?” Eleven wrinkles her nose. “A video store worker?”

“No, what—El. People don’t like to hear about lesbians in broad daylight, from a teenager. You know this! You…” It strikes her, then, watching Eleven’s face morph from wary calm to coldness. “You were raised in a lab.”

“Yes.”

“Your social exposure is the boys, Max, and their families. Years of television.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t _know_.”

“Know _what_!” Eleven finally explodes. “I want to watch a romance with _my girlfriend!_ ”

She’s breathing heavily. In the flickering light, Robin looks at her, and sees—a face she’s tried not to look at, in the mirror.

“Eleven,” she says carefully, “I understand how you’re feeling. When I realized the world wasn’t always accepting of—of people like me, I took it hard. Still haven’t recovered all the way, if we’re being honest.”

Eleven is just staring. Harder and harder, like she’s trying to make something move.

 _You can’t move the whole world_ , Robin thinks. _Not at once. Not alone. Not even you, Eleven._

She thinks of the protests she’s heard of. The movies she’s smuggled and watched, at home by herself. She’s not alone. Not in this world, this country, this state—even this town.

“Not normal?” Eleven questions, softly.

Robin swallows. “It’s not bad, Eleven. Just not like—like most everybody else we know.”

“Except us. Max.”

“Yes,” Robin agrees. “Us. Other people, they might not understand. Eleven, they might—they might be cruel.”

The backroom is dusty. There’s a small window, and the light filtering through it catches every soft floating speck, illuminates.

“I’ve never been like everyone else,” Eleven says. “But I’m not a monster. It’s just the way I am. My friends, they say—they say I’m so special. Beautiful. Being different is part of how I’m special. Joyce says someday, if I want, more people can know about me. And understand.”

Tears are stinging Robin’s eyes.

“Someday. Someday they will.”

“If they don’t,” Eleven continues, “I’m hard to hurt. I’m strong. Mike was the first one I loved, but doesn’t mean he was the best. Doesn’t mean he’s right. I like Max because she believes. Not that I’m a weapon. Or bad. But that I’m right to trust myself. Even with mistakes.”

“For someone so quick to judgment,” Robin says, “Max is pretty wise.”

“I love her,” El confirms. _Oh_ , it’s nice to hear. It’s nice, in this tiny backroom, in this quiet confidence, to know it’s not just Robin.

 _It’s going to be okay,_ she promises them both. _We’re going to make it._

* * *

Steve likes to drag the kids to the pool in the summer, even though Robin doubts the nerd boys are as familiar as they should be with the sun.

“Doesn’t this pool set off your, er… superpowers?”

El shrugs. “Too much… chlorine?” She nods. “Too much noise. So much screaming.”

“Do you like her swimsuit?” Max asks. “We picked it out together.”

“Very fashionable,” Robin confirms.

“Out of the way!” Lucas hollers, “some of us already took off our shoes and our feet are cooking!”

“No running!” The lifeguard on the stand calls, but none of the boys listen. None of them jump in the pool so much as they’re shoved there—the last man standing gets a push of the psychic variety.

Fair and freckled, Robin settles onto a poolchair with her sunblock and her Kate Chopin book, half watching the boys wrestle Steve in the water. After colorfully making their way through snowcones (El has turned into quite the foodie), the girls splash in with the rest. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It’s summer.

“Hey.”

It’s the lifeguard, wet from a dip in the pool, her hair still impossibly curly despite the way it’s dripping down her neck.

“I haven’t seen you at the pool much before. Now you’re here with Harrington all the time.”

“I—haven’t seen you before at all,” Robin admits.

The lifeguard tilts her head. “We had French together. You were really good. Also, I was a cheerleader, so I saw the band playing at all the football games.”

“I’m going to need to see a cheer,” Robin says. “To jog my memory.”

“No way,” the lifeguard says, shaking her head with a little laugh. “So you’re not going to hop in with your boyfriend and his strange collection of much younger friends?”

Robin coughs, feels her cheeks burn. She needs to apply more sunblock. “Not my boyfriend! No way. Not… really my type.”

“Is that so,” the lifeguard says, with interest. It wouldn’t be the first time. There’s always at least one blushing girl at the video store, asking Steve to get videos from the lowest or highest shelf for her.

“Do you want me to talk to him for you?” Robin asks, feeling tired.

“No,” the lifeguard says. “My shift’s over. Mind if I tan next to you?”

She hasn’t looked at Steve once. In fact, she’s looking at Robin’s choice of literature with more intent. Robin now speaks six languages, and her seventh could be _subtle hints_.

 _Oh my god_.

Robin suddenly isn’t tired at all.

“So the redhead and the girl with the thousand-year stare,” Robin’s lifeguard says when she walks Robin home after her fourth trip to the pool in as many days. “They’re totally dating.”

Robin wishes she had a whole U.S.S. Butterscotch in her mouth, so she wouldn’t have to answer.

“Is that a problem?” She challenges. _Because El can literally fling people that oppose her into another dimension._

“Definitely not a problem,” her lifeguard says, and takes her hand. “Are you ever going to explain how you became best friends with six highschoolers and Steve Harrington?”

“I find a lot of this hard to believe,” Robin admits, squeezing their intertwined fingers, “but god, I’ll try my best.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you are wondering why a curly-haired lifeguard girl made an appearance, she actually did show up in S3E3. The reason why she was chosen is because she sits there with her gay bff’s arm on her knee and doesn’t give two ****s, she just reads her magazine and drinks her soda. Two kids are coming to ask about the hottest man in town, Billy? Fellow lifeguard and owner of a sixpack? Mysteriously absent Billy who’s been behaving like a lunatic, who all the straight women are obsessed with? Lesbian lifeguard is not interested in Hot Billy. She just wants to read her magazine and drink her soda.


End file.
